


Get On The Same Page

by Jaela



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaela/pseuds/Jaela
Summary: Shibayama's got it bad for one of his fellow first years. You know, the one who keeps asking why he's always hanging around waiting for him even though it's probably really easy to tell EXACTLY why he's doing that.
Relationships: Haiba Lev/Shibayama Yuuki
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	Get On The Same Page

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this post floating around about how, bafflingly and infuriatingly, you can break yourself out of a writing rut by changing your font to Comic Sans MS. I tried this, and I'm horrified to report that it works. I wrote this in two days and I'm finally posting fic again for the first time in a million years.
> 
> SHIBAYAMA AND LEV'S BIG MOMENT IS GOING TO BE ANIMATED NEXT SEASON, WHO ELSE IS HYPED AS HECK  
> I really hope it leads to more people shipping this and filling up this tag, please, I am so lonely

Lev doesn’t even notice Shibayama running up beside him at first. So Shibayama gets to watch him uninterrupted for about half the length of the gym—Lev’s eyes squeezed shut frustration, feather-light hair fluttering when he tips his head back and sighs.

But when they near one end, Lev opens his eyes so he’ll be able to see where to round the corner—a sudden startling flash of green—and almost forgets to turn when he registers that he’s not jogging alone. Shibayama grabs the crook of his elbow and steers him so that he won’t crash into the wall.

”You’re still here, Shibayama?”  
  
”Um...” He glances towards the door, as much out of embarrassment as to lead Lev’s gaze and remind him that the gym is still open, so Kai is still finishing something up nearby too so he can lock up after them.  
  
He doesn’t mention that it’s not unusual for him to remain behind. If he did that, he’d have to acknowledge that Lev hasn’t noticed, and the totally unfair twinge of loneliness that follows.  
  
“You looked lonely running laps out here by yourself, so I thought I’d keep you company,” is the answer he decides to go with. Even if it’s a little too transparent.  
  
Lev probably won’t notice anyway. Shibayama can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  
  
”But it’s a penalty,” Lev says. “You didn’t get in trouble too, did you?”  
  
”Well, no...” Shibayama laughs as they round the next corner. “But penalty laps don’t seem as bad if you’re not doing them alone, right?”  
  
Lev stares at Shibayama for just long enough to almost break his calm mask. And then he brightens, straightens up to his full (incredible, intimidating) height. “You’re right! We’re almost done with this one and I didn’t even notice!”  
  
Lev’s easy optimism is, as usual, contagious. Shibayama grins and funnels a little more energy into his legs so he can keep up with Lev’s long strides.

From then on, Shibayama never stops showing up. Lev never looks out for Shibayama to see if he’s coming to join in, but without fail, Shibayama finds him every time he’s assigned some penalty anyway, and they pick up chatting like it’s the most natural thing in the world.  
  
If Lev could trust him like that on the court, too, Shibayama thinks—never looking back but just trusting that Shibayama will be there—they could become something truly formidable together. It makes Shibayama fill with warmth and enthusiasm to think of it, and he quickly forgets just how little time they’ve actually spent together behind the net.

Once, while Shibayama is folding towels and humming a song to himself, Lev is studdenly standing over him and asking, “What song is that?”  
  
For all that he’s startled, Shibayama manages not to jump. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it on the radio lately, but I can’t remember the words.”  
  
“It sounds like this one Russian pop song!” Lev declares with excitement.

“Really? How does it go?”

If Shibayama hadn’t already forgotten the towels completely, Lev bursting into song certainly would have done the trick. Just a few bars in, Shibayama is giggling with abandon. Because, while Lev’s voice isn’t half bad, it’s also _loud._ And moreover,

“It doesn’t sound the same at all!” Shibayama wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.

“It doesn’t?” Lev seems totally unfazed by being laughed at. It’s unreasonably cute. “Wait, sing yours again!”

“No!”

“Come on, just a little?”

“Like I said, I can’t remember it.”

“Shibayamaaaaa. Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m not,” says Shibayama, who is absolutely embarrassed.

For some reason, Lev starts singing again, and sits down to help fold the towels. They finish far too quickly for Shibayama’s taste. He sighs quietly and leans against Lev, his head resting just above Lev’s elbow.

“You don’t have to stay and help with this,” he says. Because Shibayama himself is one thing, but Lev is actually good enough to be a regular player. He should be practicing, not attending to the chores Shibayama takes on to be as helpful as he can while he’s still not on everyone else’s level yet.

“Huh? But you’re always helping me when you don’t have to.”  
  
”But that’s because--”  
  
Because he wants to.  
  
Because if he can’t stand on the court with Lev as much as he’d like to yet, he can at least run laps with him around it.  
  
Because it feels both helpful to the senpais, and also _special_ to be the one who can connect with Lev and help him take on his training with diligence and a smile.  
  
”Because why?” Lev asks. Curious, but too patient for it to feel like prying.

“Nah, you’re right,” he says instead. Why get into that complicated stuff when he can just enjoy the moment? Lev hasn’t pulled away or anything. “Thanks for the help, Haiba-kun.”  
  
Lev flexes and pushes his sleeve up with a grin. “I’m the ace, after all!”  
  
And Shibayama giggles again, because those ambitions are exactly why he shouldn’t be wasting his time on chores like this. But... surely Shibayama is allowed to be a little selfish now and then.

When he finally does stand, he uses Lev’s shoulder to pull himself up. ”Wanna get ice cream on the way home?”

Lev lives in the totally opposite direction, but he says yes anyway.

Shibayama is getting the feeling that he’ll have to say something soon.

Shibayama is idling in the courtyard during lunch, trying to decide what to do with the extra time after finishing his food early, when he feels a tug at his wrist. He looks up—very up—and sees Lev with a questioning look on his face, not meeting Shibayama’s eyes. Shibayama’s first thought is that Lev is holding his hand and this might be a dream, but Lev simply spreads his opposite palm and presses Shibayama’s against it.  
  
”What…” Shibayama’s voice sticks in his throat. His fingers are tingling, and he almost imagines Lev might feel it. “Haiba-kun?”

“Your hands are so small,” Lev says, and with a laugh, he drops Shibayama’s hand and finally looks him in the eye. “I wanted to compare.”

Shibayama stares. At first he’s short-circuiting because of the amazing brightness of Lev’s eyes, and then in the next moment a cool regret creeps in that he didn’t look properly, or appreciate the moment when their hands were touching. If only he could rewind that and play it back. It doesn’t matter that he’s being called small; Lev doesn’t know how it makes Shibayama self-conscious to be reminded of it.

Shibayama would like to tell him. He’d like to tell him a lot of things. But he stands frozen, his mind turning the suddenness of the gesture and the narrowness of the proximity over and over.

“Are you okay?” Lev asks after a moment.

“Yeah,” Shibayama says. And then, before he can think better of it, he’s grabbing Lev’s wrist this time and dragging him around the side of the building to the door just outside a rarely-used stairwell. His mind is made up.

Or at least he thinks it is, until he’s looking at Lev’s face, his smooth skin and hair so wispy and light that it flutters, seemingly weightless, in the slightest breeze… Shibayama’s nerve is gone.

“Um,” He says, kicking the toe of one shoe against the dirt.

“Yeah?” Lev tilts his head to the side and his whole body tilts just a little to follow.

It’s the sort of adorable absurdity that makes Shibayama feel like bursting out laughing, usually. But his pulse is too quick for that now, and his stomach twisted into too many knots. So he just takes a deep breath, and tries to let go as much of the tension as he can on the exhale. “I had a small lunch today, so I was gonna go buy some bread. Wanna come with me?”

Lev lights up like an early Christmas display, and he doesn’t even ask why they had to take such an odd detour just to get bread.

So, Shibayama doesn’t tell him that day.

He also doesn’t tell him while they’re trudging to practice early the next morning, yawning in unison and trying to warm their numb fingers in shallow tracksuit pockets.

Or the next week, on the corner by the convenience store after Inuoka breaks off from the group to take a phone call.

The words are locked away somewhere, bound underneath the surface so tightly that they won’t rise up no matter how hard Shibayama tries to summon them.

If only, he thinks one night while staring up at the ceiling above his bed, he had just told Lev while they were folding towels. Quiet and alone, with their breathing in sync. There’s no going back and fixing the past, but… what he wouldn’t give for another moment just like that.

The seam of Fukunaga’s jersey starts to come apart at the shoulder during one afternoon practice, and Shibayama borrows Kuroo’s sewing kit to patch it up. As much as Shibayama likes being helpful in any way he can, it’s almost embarrassing to admit to a skill like this. In an unexpected reprieve, Lev doesn’t come near because he doesn’t like needles. Shibayama makes neat invisible ladder stitches and ponders why that makes him feel a little bit lonely. Everything inside of him feels like a contradiction, but at least he can tug the thread tight and watch fabric pull together in a crisp line, as though nothing was ever amiss.

Fukunaga gives Shibayama a grateful pat on the shoulder, and the uneasiness dissipates. Kuroo tries to say that Shibayama can keep the little sewing kit, but Shibayama insists on returning it. Kuroo doesn’t know what kind of power it holds.

It’s just barely snowing when evening practice ends on Friday. Predictions warn of much more snow throughout the night, so Saturday practice has been preemptively cancelled.

Which means, if this goes badly, at least there will be a whole weekend for the dust to settle before Shibayama has to show his face in public again. He draws the cool air into his lungs, letting it ground him.

Lev is being scolded again. He’s been more diligent about practice lately, so it’s not as easy for Shibayama to guess why anymore. At least Yaku lets him go in no more than a couple minutes, and when Lev appears outside the gym, his shoulders aren’t slumping too much. It must have been a light offense, whatever he did.

“Haiba-kun,” Shibayama calls, and Lev crosses the distance between them in four long strides. Sound carries easily in the night, so Shibayama tried to put a safe distance between himself and the ears of the last remaining teammates streaming out to head home.

“You didn’t go home already, Shibayama?”

He shakes his head, and the movement makes him aware that his ears are already going numb from the cold. “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you.”

“To me?” Lev looks pleased in the usual endearing way he does when he gets attention. Shibayama smiles, and feels warmer already. There are a lot of ways he could lead up to this, but they’d all just be buying time. Shibayama has waited more than his fair share already.

“Are you seeing anyone right now? Or is there someone you like?”

The smile on Lev’s face doesn't slip an inch. In fact his expression seems frozen in place, but Shibayama can almost hear the whirring of gears inside his head as he tries to get some kind of grasp on the question.

“No?” Lev doesn’t sound sure of himself when he finally answers, but he doesn’t seem insincere either. “There isn’t anybody like that.”

“Okay,” Shibayama says, and he squeezes his hands into fists for a last burst of strength. “Then will you try going out with me?”

Lev’s expression still doesn’t shift in the slightest. Shibayama is afraid he might be broken, or at least stalled out. Some kind of system error.

“Because I like you,” Shibayama clarifies. “I really like you, Haiba-kun.”

Lev _does_ move then, grabs both of Shibayama’s hands and pulls them up to his chest so sharply that Shibayama feels like his joints might pop out of place.

“Okay!” Lev says, eyes sparkling. “Yes, let’s do it!”

Shibayama feels faint, like he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep his feet on the ground. It’s not a confession of mutual feelings, but Lev looks so animated and he’s clutching Shibayama’s hands so tight.

“Yeah,” Shibayama says faintly. And just because he can hardly believe he’s not dreaming, “Really?”

By way of an answer, Lev’s smile spreads into a wide, toothy grin. He’s as handsome as a model, if lacking some of the refinement and elegance of one. “I never thought you liked me, Shibayama! I’m really, really happy!”

Shibayama doesn’t know which of those statements to be more stunned by, but that grin is contagious. “It was probably kind of obvious, you know!”

“Really?”

Shibayama giggles, letting the incredible reality of this set in. The gym windows are dark now, so everyone must already be gone. Shibayama didn’t see the last person leaving or locking up. He wonders if they were spotted out here, a few stretches away in the dark and cold. And if Lev had already been holding his hands by then.

“Aw man,” Shibayama says, squeezing his eyes shut. “I did this today so I’d have the weekend to recover if you said no… but now we won’t see each other until Monday practice!” And oversight born of pessimism, he realises too late.

But Lev shakes his head vigorously, sending his hair floating like feathers. “No way! We’re going out, right?! So let’s go out! Let’s go tomorrow!”

“It’s gonna snow like crazy,” Shibayama reminds him through a laugh.

“We can’t?” Lev looks like nearly two metres of sad puppy. How could anyone say no to that?

“We can. We definitely can,” Shibayama reassures him. Even if the snow piled up higher than his head, he’d tunnel his way out and find a way at this point. How bewildering, to realise in full just how much he would do for this guy.

Shibayama tugs down on Lev’s hands, coaxes him to lean down far enough that their faces are level if Shibayama stands on his toes. He hesitates for a moment, and then kisses the tip of Lev’s nose.

Lev blinks, and his whole body goes so slack that his mouth falls open and he releases Shibayama’s hands, allowing Shibayama to twirl around and hide his face.

“Hey,” Lev says as soon as he recovers, “I thought you were going to…!”

“Don’t say it!” Shibayama covers his face with both hands, for good measure. “It’s too embarrassing!”

A moment later he feels long fingers ruffling his hair. “You’re pretty cute, Shibayama.”

“Look who’s talking,” Shibayama murmurs.

“I can’t hear you, your voice is all muffled.” Lev’s hand slips down from Shibayama’s head to his shoulders, ultimately settling over the small of his back. “Come on, it’s cold… wanna walk home together?”

He’s forgetting again that they live in different directions. But Shibayama doesn’t want to remind him yet; they can walk together, just for a little while.

It’s seems so much darker than it was just minutes ago, and Lev’s shadow towers over Shibayama in the streetlights as they walk. They’ve spent plenty of time together like this already, just the two of them. But now Shibayama’s feet are light with the magic of knowing that now, for sure, it means the same thing to both of them. And tomorrow no matter what kind of blizzard threatens them, they’ll walk like this again, wrapped up in the same spell. Lev won’t have to look at him curiously and question why he’s still here, hasn’t gone home, why he's hanging around conspicuously where he knows Lev might pass by. From now on, his presence nearby will be a matter of fact—a simple law of the universe.


End file.
